


I only sleep when I'm with you

by 7billionothersandme



Series: Affectionate Stormpilot Suggestions [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Light Angst, M/M, Morning Cuddles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-05-22
Packaged: 2018-06-10 03:17:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6937480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/7billionothersandme/pseuds/7billionothersandme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sleeping can be hard when all you've known is the presence of others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I only sleep when I'm with you

Finn stares at the blank ceiling above him. His eyes are burning, vision blurring slightly around the edges but still he cannot sleep. He’s only had his own quarters for a few days now, there were a lot of empty bunks left after Starkiller. The silence is unnerving him. 

From as far back as he can remember, which, given the nature of his past probably isn’t that far, he has never been alone for longer than a few minutes. Even as the squads shrank in size as they got older, till it was just the four of them, Nines, Slip, Zeroes and him, FN-2187, there was always the sound of rustling sheets, deep breaths, light snores.

Now there’s just the sound of his own breath, his own sheets, the occasional click or creak from the base settling in the night. He almost, just for a second, wishes he was back.

But if he’s not going to sleep he might as well do something useful and get more familiar with the layout of the base. It’s not terribly complicated, but he feels that the sooner he knows where everything is the sooner he’ll feel like he belongs there. 

Only pausing to pull on some thick socks, he walks out into the dark corridor, lights dimmed during sleeping hours.  
He decides to start by heading to the mess hall, Poe had directed him to it on his first day out of medbay, and he had been going there for meals every day since. It’s comforting to start off with something he knows and recognises before he branches off into unfamiliar territory.

He doesn’t intend to go in, meaning just to stand in the doorway for a second before he continues on, but he notices a familiar silhouette at one of the tables. The few seconds longer that he stands there makes Poe look up from where his head was resting on his hand and he pulls out a small smile for Finn, beckoning him over.

“Rough night?” he asks quietly as Finn slides slowly onto the bench in front of him, aware of the tension in his back.

“Nah,” maybe if he’s as blase as possible about this it’ll make it true, “no worse than usual. Just fancied a walk that’s all. What about you?”

Poe gives a rueful smile, seeing right through him, “About the same, buddy. About the same.”

It’s now, sitting opposite him, that Finn notices the redness around his eyes and the tired lines of his face. He gets the sudden feeling that right now, just between them, it would be okay to tell the truth.

“Actually…” he pauses, unsure how to continue, before Poe straightens and gives him a look that says he understands completely whatever it is Finn’s about to say, “It’s too kriffing quiet here. I can’t stand it. It’s driving me nuts. I’ve never slept in a room with less than three other people before and all I can hear is my own breathing and it’s really kind of freaky man.”

He’d kind of worked himself up into a frenzy at finally being able to tell someone what had been on his mind the past few days, and it comes out of him in one big rush. Poe just listened, still with that look in his eye. He’d been with the Republic far longer than he’d been with the Resistance and he knew what it was like to get used to that background noise of other people sleeping around you. 

Once all Finn’s words were spent he paused, then said more quietly, “So what about you? Actually?”

Poe leans back in his chair rubbing his eyes, “Well, you can’t get mentally force-fucked without it doing at least a little damage. Ya know?”

Finn just nods, he’d never liked having prisoner duty. It was unnerving, to see captains and lieutenants enter and leave the cells sullen-faced and empty handed, only for Kylo Ren to sweep in and out in five minutes, victorious.

“I’ve got a spare bunk, if you want. You know, after Starkiller, a lot of us do…” Poe leaves the suggestion hanging in the air. Finn knows logically that he’s already sleeping in a dead person’s bed, but somehow taking one that one of Poe’s friends used to occupy seems more invasive.

“Are you sure? I wouldn’t want to…” Overstep my boundries, make a mistake, Force knows I’ve made enough already-

“Of course, buddy. Might help us both out.” Poe makes to leave, “You don’t have to if you don’t want to-”

“No, I do.” Finn says, butting in quickly, not wanting Poe to take back the offer or think he’s ungrateful. “Lead the way.”

Finn wasn’t sure what he was expecting, maybe something more lavish than his own quarters, seeing as Poe is a commander and all, but his quarters are exactly the same. Two small beds either side, each with a little desk area and sink, communal ‘freshers down the hall.

“Sorry there’s nothing ready, you take mine and I’ll make another bed up,” Poe indicates to his own rumpled sheets before searching in a cupboard for some fresh ones.

“No, Poe, it’s fine. I can make my own bed in probably half the time you can.” And it’s probably true, despite the smile tugging at his lips, because he was a Stormtrooper, and everyone is expected to be able to perform all tasks with maximum efficiency and no wastage at all times or face the consequences.

Poe turns to him, and seeing Finn’s smile throws him one in return, satisfied that he’s not uncomfortable about this mention of his past, “Sure, buddy. Whatever you want.” And promptly chucks the sheets at his head, eliciting a small chuckle from Finn. The moment reminds Poe of childhood sleepovers on Yavin IV, just him and his closest friends staying up too late while his dad pretended to be asleep in the other room. It spreads a comforting warmth through his chest, and maybe he chuckles too, just a little bit.

Finn’s right, his bed is made up in about the same amount of time it takes Poe to take a quick trip to the ‘fresher and back, far faster and neater than anything he could have done himself.

“Night buddy,” he grunts as he drops himself back into his bunk, feeling his exhaustion creeping back.

“Night Poe.”

He can’t have been asleep more than an hour before the nightmare starts. It’s innocuous at first, he’s flying his X-wing on some mission for the General, making good progress, when suddenly the cockpit is pitch black as if someone had thrown tar over the front of his fighter, followed by the appearance of a menacing, sharp red glow from somewhere behind him. Then everything is very cold, his breath is misting and he can see frost creeping over his console and the cold starts piercing through his brain and its knives stabbing into his consciousness and its the death of his mother and the look in his father’s eye when he defects from the Academy and Yissira Zyde all at once and suddenly he’s awake gasping and trembling and sweating. Finn’s there, in front of him, one hand on his shoulder, soft, and the other holding his hand, hard. 

“I’m good.” Poe manages to gasp out, “I’m good.”

Finn doesn’t say anything, just climbs onto the bed next to Poe and cradles him, until the trembling stops and his breathing goes back to normal.

He doesn’t notice himself falling back asleep until it's morning and his chrono is beeping obnoxiously at him from the desk. He goes to move, before realising that he is wrapped in two large arms with Finn’s face pressed up against his neck and their legs are tangled together and kriff if it isn’t hard to find the will to move when he feels so warm and safe for the first time in a long, long, while.

It becomes fairly routine after that. They still go to sleep in their separate beds, but when one of them wakes up from a nightmare they crawl into the bed of the other and talk about it, if they want, or just try to go back to sleep. More often than not they go to bed separately and wake up together, limbs tangled and bodies warm. 

They have a few weeks of this comfort, but as the First Order does not rest, neither can the Resistance and so Poe eventually gets called on a mission. It’s not too long, just a week long reconnaissance of previously known First Order territories to check for any new activity. 

And so for the first time in a month Finn has no-one to comfort him when he dreams of that unstable red energy slicing through through Poe’s spine, leaving him as cold as the snow falling around them- because somewhere along the line it stopped being Finn that was hurt in his dreams and started being Poe.

In fact, he gets less than 10 hours of real sleep over the week that Poe is away, getting through his duties on auto-pilot, they might as well have replaced him with a droid.

So when Poe returns, thankfully, thankfully, unscathed- if a little smelly- Finn embraces him with all his remaining strength. Poe whispers a soft, “I missed you too, buddy” into his ear, as sincere as it is light-hearted.

When they get ready for bed that night Finn doesn’t bother with going to his own bunk first, he knows he’ll still be having nightmares about Poe. He just climbs in behind Poe, who, if he’s surprised, doesn’t show it in the slightest.

At some point the chrono goes off, but Finn slaps it with his arm until it goes silent and falls immediately back asleep.

When he eventually wakes up properly it's to gentle fingers tracing lines down his shoulder blades and a solid forehead pressed against his, “Hey,” Poe whispers, breath gently ghosting across Finn’s cheek.

He pulls back only slightly, “Poe…”

“Yeah buddy?” Poe’s forehead creases slightly, that line appearing down his brow, the one that means he’s getting anxious

“Can I tell you something, it’s kind of, well…” Finn shifts again, Poe’s hands drag back from his shoulders to catch his wrists, holding them gently, thumbs stroking over his palms.

“Go ahead, I’m all ears.”

Finn takes a deep breath, looking up sharply into Poe’s eyes, letting him really see the exhaustive strain that the last week has put on him, “I only sleep when I’m with you.”

“Finn,” Poe’s voice sounds strained, like Finn’s words just stole the breath from his lungs, “oh buddy, c’mere.” And he wraps his arms around this man who he just cannot believe he had the luck to be rescued by, pressing a soft kiss to the top of his head.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is based on an affectionate suggestion post, I may well make it into a series but we'll see. Also this is my first fic for the fandom so feel free to leave me a comment to tell me how i did!


End file.
